And then there were three...

It's been almost seven months since my last post in this blog but the stories haven't ended.  Much has happened since last October and I thought it only made sense for me to keep sharing my "adventures in motherhood" with my family, friends, and strangers.

As I write this, Roman, my 21 pound, six and a half month old baby has managed to figure out how to open the drawers of my coffee table with his feet...or toes.  I guess child-proofing the house from Baby MacGyver just got bumped up on my to-do list.  In all, motherhood has been the most introspective, inspiring, worth-while, exhausting, emotional, unnerving experience of my life.  If you choose to keep reading, you will see that while it hasn't always been fun, it's certainly one of the best blessings that I have ever received.

So what's next?

By the end of June 2011, I will make this blog private.  Why you ask?  First, although "MOFO" (my boss) is still a mofo, I don't want him to know how many times I came close to killing him during my pregnancy.  Second, if I ever turn this blog into a book, I guess I need to keep my cash cow a little closer to the chest.  Third, I want to focus more on writing on the crazy journey of motherhood in my new blog, "Breastmilk in a Martini Glass."

Why Breastmilk in a Martini Glass?

Motherhood can be nuts.  Nuts. Nuts. Nuts.  As someone who is a self proclaimed "shitty multi-tasker"  there have been many days (as you will read) where I literally haven't had time to eat anything but chocolate chip cookies because my days are jammed packed from 5:00 am - 10:00 pm.   To be fair, my sister would likely say the true source behind my action packed days is my anal retentiveness.  And compulsiveness.  Heck, I admit that I like things done my way.  But for the most part, I have come to realize that in order to keep my sanity and sense of self (while being the best person that I can be for my family) I've had to let go of an unrealistic sense of what being the perfect wife, mother, or woman looked like.  Motherhood is simply the most complicated balancing act anyone could experience and to find that balance, it takes letting go of our conventional ideas of what it means to be "perfect"  and simply doing the best that we can -- even if that means that we end up serving the baby breastmilk in a martini glass or end up drinking a cocktail from a bottle.  At the end of the day, as long as our families are provided for, who cares if the presentation is less than perfect?

Who's MommyJD (and the other writers on the blog)?

One of the best things that I've learned so far is that motherhood works much easier when you have a mental, physical, and spiritual support system.  Husbands are wonderful.  Parents are awesome.  But sometimes you need a girlfriend who will give you unsolicited honest advice, be an ear to listen, give you a "Go Get 'Em Tiger" speech when you need it.  I've been blessed with a handful of people who are all of the above and one of those people in particular, a friend who I will call 'MommyJD', became infamous during my pregnancy for sweeping in with the perfect tid-bit of random advice at the right time.  For that reason, when the time came to create another blog I figured she was the perfect person to drag along for the ride.

I am suddenly surrounded by so many awesome women who are trying to navigate this thing called "motherhood" and my hope is that "Breastmilk in a Martini Glass" will be a safe haven for any woman who has a funny or inspirational story to tell (or even if you just need to vent).   What I have learned is that sometimes it helps simply to know that you aren't the only one or the first person to experience a particular challenge.  In that spirit, I hope that the stories that you read on "Breastmilk in a Martini Glass" make you think, smile, and laugh.

Though the blog is still "under construction", please feel free to take a peek at milkinamartiniglass.blogspot.com and see what MommyJD and I have been up to.  If you are interested in writing an entry of your own, shoot us an email at milkinamartiniglass@gmail.com.

Yours Truly,

KWS

The "Waiting Period"

In one day, I will be 40 weeks pregnant. 

To put it another way, in four days I will have been pregnant for 280 days.

280 days equal approximately 76.7 percent of any given year.

For me this means that I have been pregnant from January through the end of October.

Three seasons have passed -- Winter, Spring, and Summer -- and now, I find myself in the midst of Fall.

Interesting how life happens, how the universe conspires, and how no next phase in our lives can be experienced without first learning the lesson(s) that God would ultimately want for us to master.

Right now I am tired.  I am tired and uncomfortable.  I can't sit comfortably, I can't stand comfortably, and  I can't lay comfortably -- so most of my days now are spent somewhere "in between" feeling elated that this is almost over and miserable because it is not over yet.

The "in between." 

Funny how that's where I find myself physically and mentally.  Somewhere between my sleeping positions and awake positions, somewhere between praying for patience and anxiously awaiting for the manifestation of the past 279 days of hoping and waiting -- I find myself in arm's reach and in line-of-sight of my blessing....

But like so many other times in life, God is saying..."wait".

I could spend my life studying or observing the nature of "God" because I see "Him" flowing in, through, and around all things, actions, and people.  Yet, no matter how much I try to understand myself through God and vice versa...there is one persistent lesson that God has tried to teach me which is how to find the blessing in "waiting".

I've always been told that God can give you three answers to any request, "Yes, No, or Wait."  Unlike the first two options, the true difficulty in accepting an answer of "wait" is that you must resist your own impulse after 1 day, 2 months, or 3 years of waiting to intercede on your own behalf and to move forward under your own devices.

So I've never done well with....waiting.

Yet, after I hadn't gone into labor by week 38 and I realized that all I could do IS wait, I began to reflect a little deeper on this proverbial lesson that continues to pop up time and time again throughout my life. 

I won't sit here and lie and say that the past two - three weeks have been easy -- a time where I have sat by the Lake and reflected on these things with a smile until the revelation of God showered down on me like fruit coming out of the sky.  I've had my moments of rolling my eyes at God, trying to negotiate with him, and choosing to ignore him momentarily for kinder friends called cheesecake, cookies, and "The Office".
Yet, as my mother has reminded me as of late..."God is the perfect gentlemen and will wait for you until you are ready...."

Once I finally gave in and gave God my full attention -- he revealed to me that oftentimes there are three reasons for being in a "waiting period" -- 1) To re-evaluate, 2) To re-affirm, or 3) To re-direct.  After some time to reflect on what this means for my life -- I wanted to share what I have learned.
 
My Re-evaluation:

When we are in periods of "waiting" we must often re-evaluate our current situation not through the lens of our own minds but through the eyes of God.  While this may seem like a predicament since we are not God we must remember that we can petition him to help us see the bigger picture.  It is so easy to see the small picture -- merely because we are limited in our comprehension of life as humans -- however, oftentimes if we allow God to show us the "Gods-eye" view -- then the unlearned lessons, the unfinished tasks/goals, and even the unreleased pain that has kept us from reaching our blessing will be revealed to us.

For me -- I realized that I had to seal the deal on my relationship with God.  Despite my life-long relationship with God, I recognized that I had been ignoring one important question for the past 5-6 months.   This question was "Do I trust God or not?"  Despite my church going, bible-reading, and inspiration seeking ways, a few months ago I realized that I had not truly trusted God is quite some time which was revealed to me in my difficulty to allow myself to "hope' for things.

The truth is that after the death of my closest friend a few days after I turned 21 and after seeing my father have to fight for his life on multiple occasions -- I began to always wait for the other shoe to drop.  Even in the midst of my happiest moments, I felt a pang of anxiety at some point, hoping and praying that something horrible wasn't right around the corner.  So my fear and anxiety sustained my relationship with God for many years as opposed to my faith and hope in "Him".

Had it not been for my experience of being mocked by my church's "Jesus Police" (See Blog Entry: "Jesus Be a Fence - Part III) I would have never been forced to reconsider the level of trust that I had in a God that I believed in for so long.  As much it bothered me,  I realized that the reason that no one in the basement of the church that night believed that I knew Jesus that night was because I no longer did.  I had allowed the real foundation of our relationship - trust and hope to fade.

My Re-affirmation:



Simply put, Romans 8: 24-25 reads: 

"..But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it [with perseverance]."

After reading it, I felt like Paul had called me out from over the balconies of heaven.  I practiced "hope" of a boot-leg kind -- one where I didn't have to practice it until the blessing was already in my hands.

"Thank you Lord for getting me this job! I shole was hoping I would get it!"

"Thank you Lord for allowing me to be able to afford these shoes!  I shole was hoping that my debit card wouldn't get rejected!"

All very sad examples of putting "hope" in God.

But as God would have it -- here I find myself in a situation where all I can do is HOPE.  Sure I provided the egg and Pat provided the sperm -- but only by a flash of grace and after 279+ days of HOPING (for what I have not yet seen) can I bring my baby, my blessings, into the world.

My Re-direction:

So my redirection is choosing to walk in hope and not fear.  What I had to realize about the painful things of my past is that each and every time -- God has gotten me through each of them.  Whether death, heartbreak, illness, or loss of a friendship, etc -- each time, I have gotten through it undoubtedly wiser, stronger, and better.  So insofar as that I know that I can make it through the tribulations, in faith - in mind-boggling, makes no sense to the world, unshakable faith - I choose with excitement and anticipation to focus on the hope of the blessings that God has for me.

With Love,

Kirstin, mother of Roman Dean Smith

Give Us Us Free

My last day working with MOFO (for the foreseeable future) was on Friday, October 1, 2010.

When I walked out of that office (an hour earlier than I was supposed to), I experienced a sense of joy and happiness that I had never felt in my entire life.

Part of me was happy to be leaving that experience because it was emotionally, mentally, and physically draining as well as retarding to my overall personal growth. Another part of me was grateful to have completed that particular "assignment" in life's journey and for the first time in a long time, I felt confident that I had learned the lesson that God wanted me to learn. I felt great because as I walked out of that office, I was determined to not ever take a job in government, with politicians, or just for money again.

So the million dollar question was, "what are you going to do now that you are done with work and may never have to see MOFO again?"

While I thought that I would enjoy long, endless, days of lemonade, my down comforter on the couch, and action movies -- the truth is that my first week off of work made me feel like an emancipated slave that didn't realize that she was free.

From Monday through Wednesday, I still checked my work email, took phone calls from the job (unnecessarily), worked on the baby's nursery, exchanged duplicate gifts from the shower, ran errands, and cooked like nothing had even changed.

But by Thursday, I had a long talk with myself regarding the need to slow down and allowing myself to actually relax.  I recognized that if I didn't bring things down a notch that I would burn myself out before the baby even got here and would end up having a nervous breakdown my the time the baby was 1 week old.

So on Thursday I went and got my hair done and on Friday I went to my favorite spa and allowed myself to relax and enjoy peace, quiet, and stillness.

I've even began to host "Hot Chocolate/Chili/Tea Time" socials with friends during the weekends so I won't develop cabin fever.  Today will be Chili Sunday with the Sister Circle and I'm just glad that I'll have some company to keep me from shampooing the apartment again or from thinking too much about my gigantic stomach and swollen ankles.

So there it is family and friends, this is my state of well being as of 10.10.10.  I'll continue to blog as exciting events occur, but its likely that the next time that you hear from me - I'll be blogging through my labor or introducing you to my sweet little boy!

Talk to you soon!

R.I.P My "Wild African Bush"

Week 36

At this point in every woman's pregnancy, I am certain that proper consideration must be given to some of the more intimate details of your labor.

Sure you have to consider whether you are going natural or with an epidural. And you should at least rule out narcotics in the event that you begin to hyperventilate or hallucinate. Vaginal delivery or elective C-Section? All important questions to consider. But the one question that often goes ignored until the last minute is...

..."Should I go with my natural "bush" or should I go Brazilian?"

I, like so many other women (I later realized) pondered this question for weeks. After realizing that I could barely reach my pooch to wipe myself, I ruled out the option of shaving it myself to eliminate the risk of hurting "her". And the thought of waxing  "down there" so close to labor didn't sit completely well with me so I had pretty much decided to go the natural route.

So one day, when my sister asked me to accompany her to a wax place in Rogers Park I was still pretty confident that I wouldn't be partaking in the services. I figured that many slaves and women in underdeveloped countries delivered babies everyday with a fully covered vagina and that if it worked for them, then it would work just fine for me.

When we walked into "Dipsi's Wax Shop", the owner, a beautiful Indian woman named Dipsi asked my sister and I what services we were getting and I told her that I was still considering whether I would get anything but that she could see my sister first while I decided.

As I sat there waiting, I began to lean towards getting a bikini wax so that I didn't look a complete hot mess once I was on the delivery table doing to spread eagle for all of my family and doctor to see.

Five minutes later she came out of the room and asked me what I had a decided to do. I told her that I was going to get a bikini wax and she told me to go into the room where my sister was. Initially, I felt a little awkward because I didn't want to see my sister doing the spread eagle, but to my relief and surprise when I walked in there my sister was already dressed, telling me that she was completely done.

Moments later Dipsi walked back in.

"Oh, you so pregnant!! When are you due?" Dipsi asked

"I'm due October 22, so about four more weeks." I replied

"So you taking all off right?" Dipsi questioned

"Oh no, Miss Dipsi...I'm going to just get a bikini wax and if you could trim the rest that would be great."

"No...no, we don't trim here...you lay down now."

"Oh...okay...well maybe I should just get a bikini wax then...I'll trim when I get home..."

"No, I take it off now..."

(By this time half of my private part was covered with wax)

"But Miss Dipsi...I don't know if..."

RRRRRIIIIIIPPPPP!

(Breathing hard and trying to push my 20 pound stomach up off the table)...

"Wait...wait...Miss Dispi...I don't know if this is right!" I began to shout with a raised voice.

"No you lay down...we take care of this now and no need to trim."

RIIIIIIIIIIPPPPP!

(By this time I am sweating and shaking because of how painful it was and how fast she was taking off all of my hair.)

"Wait! Wait! Ms. Dipsi...I can't take it! No really. I can't take it...just wait! Please.I need a moment!"

"We almost done! Now spread your legs high and pull them close!"

By this time I was scared of her and couldn't believe that she had managed to wax me completely bald in less than 3 minutes flat.

RRRRRIIIIPPPP!

By this time, I was in a combination of shock, pain, and trauma so that last rip of hair didn't even feel so bad...

"So you see...you done. No trimming needed. Baby come and doctor can see. Okay. You happy?"

As I wiped the sweat off my forehead and neck I could only whimper out a "yes, Ms. Dipsi..thank you."

Once we got inside of the car, I told my sister that I didn't know if my vagina would physically or emotionally recover from what just happened. But I must admit, in retrospect, I am going into labor a bit more confident knowing that there isn't a jungle "down there" and that baby's first peek into this world will be obstruction-free and clear.

Finally! Everything is done!

My husband, mother, and sister are convinced that I am nuts.

One day after the baby shower, I had completely unpacked all of the gifts, put everything inside of it's appropriate drawer, and began to sort laundry that needed to be pre-cleaned before the baby can wear it.

Two days after the shower, I had gone through my nursery checklist and ordered all outstanding items from baby Babies R Us.com and Amazon.

Three days after the shower, I was shampooing my carpet for the 15th time. in three weeks.

Four days after the shower, I was putting together the stroller, baby swing, diaper drawers, and animal mobile for the baby's bed.

(Sidenote, now that I am typing all of this out...I guess I do sound a bit crazy...)

Everyone keeps asking me to stop doing stuff, but the truth is that I just can't.

I was a bit neurotic with a touch of anxiety before I got pregnant now I think I just have developed clinically diagnosable OCD, ADD, and I'll throw Turrets in there considering how I used to curse about MOFO.

Eventually, I figure I'll either run out of steam or the baby will just fall out in the middle of me cleaning my bathtub so I try not to worry to much about being "too" active.

Yet, I must admit, that its getting a bit more difficult as the days go by - not because I am exhausted but because my stomach won't allow me to reach up (to organize the cabinets) or down (to reorganize my shoes) for too long without tipping over.

But I really am trying to slow down...I really am. It's just extremely hard when you have nothing to do but wait.
'
I feel like perhaps there is a lesson in this time that I am supposed to learn - a lesson besides how to shampoo a three bedroom apartment in less than 30 minutes. So I am truly going to try to stop and listen and learn from this "waiting period" in my life because I know that one day I'll look back at this time and wish that I would have allowed myself more time to relax and prepare for the multitude of ways that my life is about to change.

Oh no....there's a banana in my tailpipe!

One week after my shower, I officially made nine months (ie  36 weeks). Despite the issues that I had with fluctuating blood pressure and swelling around my feet during the hot weather - I was grateful that I made it nine months without any tremendous health issues. Even my stretch marks were minimal, just two small areas on the sides of my back, so I was feeling confident that the worse of my pregnancy was far behind me.

So one day as I was enjoying my "spa time" in the shower, lathering up with my spearmint eucalyptus bath bar, and getting ready to have a relaxing and awesome time with my warming eucalyptus scrub, you can imagine my surprise when my euphoria was interupted abruptly when I realized that I had hemorrhoids.

I usually wait to wash "down there" last so when I went to wash "back there" and felt the banana in my tailpipe, I was a bit confused at first.

Now what the heck is going on back there? I thought...

(Clearly this was my first time in life ever having this problem.)

I was in denial at first because I couldn't believe that my body would wait until I was in my last and final month to do this to me. I stood there hoping that "my situation" didn't look anything like how I always imagined hemorrhoids to look -- something like the buttocks of an orangutan or maybe a chimpanzee. There was an odd level of shame that I felt about the whole thing, perhaps since this was my first time experiencing this or maybe because I felt like it may appear like I wasn't taking care of myself the best way that I could.
...Funny, I had no idea that I had a prejudice against people with hemorrhoids until that moment.

After about 5 minutes of considering alternatives diagnosis to my "situation" - suddenly, like the pieces of a puzzle, everything started to make sense.

My revelation came slowly....

..."So my anemia led to me taking iron pills which led to the constipation which led to the pressure on my booty which led to the hemorrhoids!...

...and since I have to lift up my stomach when I pee to ensure that everything in my bladder is coming out surely the baby is putting just as much pressure on my intestines and stomach...which is also putting pressure on my butt and causing hemorrhoids!"

My remedial medical diagnosis made me feel alot better although my hemorrhoids did not. So this is a new reality for me...living with hemorrhoids that is, and I'm learning to take it one bathroom visit at a time.  If you are pregnant and suffering like me here are three tips - keep a stash of baby wipes in your bathroom and in your purse, drink plenty of water, and stay away away from the spicy foods and icecream (it's a small sacrifice in exchange for a little peace of mind "back there".)

The Best Shower Ever!!

Ingredients to a great baby shower:

1.) Great Family and Friends
2.) The "Baby Maker" Cocktail (One part fruit punch, two parts Bacardi Rum)
3.) Pin the Sperm on the Egg (the Game)
4.) Fried Chicken, Macaroni, and plenty of other alcohol absorbing food


In retrospect, the weeks leading up to my baby shower weren't very eventful. As my sister drove around town collecting blue onesie picture frames which would act as my favors, and my parents spent days replacing the everything from the carpet in the basement to the yard set, Patrick and I tried not to think too much about it because the truth is that neither of us really wanted to assume that anyone would come.

I know that sounds pessimistic but I think a better way to look at it is that we went into the shower with a pragmatic outlook. 1) It's still a recession - no matter what MSNBC reports, 2) We just got married a year ago and people may be upset that we just sent our thank you cards out a month ago, and 3) In general, neither of us like to bank on others doing stuff for us, so we just thought it would be best to prepare to buy everything that we needed, from the bibs to the bottles to the Baby Einstein play-yard ourselves.

Nevertheless, the one thing that I knew for sure was that the shower would be anything but conventional. There would be no mini tuna sandwiches with the crust cut off here. Instead of ice tea one would likely find liquor, in place of "Baby Jeopardy" or "Don't Say Baby" there would plenty of politically incorrect games, and as an alternative to bruschetta and crab cakes there would be fried chicken, macaroni, and lasagna.

Around 3pm (the time the shower began), no one had arrived. Pat sat on the couch looking at football and around 3:30, he looked at me with a look that obviously said, "Is anyone gonna come?"  I just gave him a quick shrug and went to refill my plate with three more chicken wings as I continued to talk to my sister and godsister. Knowing my family and friends, I wasn't too worried because I know that everyone runs on CP TIME + 2 hours -- but I did hope that people would come moreso for my parents, sister, and husband than for myself.

Sure enough, by 4pm the house began to fill with my mother's friends and as Patrick predicted, by the time my mother came downstairs to make her "Grand(mother) Entrance" around 4:30, the house was filling up fast.

Once 6pm arrived, Patrick and I looked around my parents house and were truly humbled. There we saw family, extended family, pseudo-family, old friends, new friends, co-workers, neighbors, and other loved ones from various times in our life. After three rounds of "Pin the Sperm on the Egg" and a few rounds of "Change the Dirty Diaper", it took us another hour and a half just to go through all of the gifts. Needless to say, we were truly overwhelmed and grateful.

So Teddy is coming into this world very loved and very well-dressed. Yet, after it was all said and done, I truly believe that I would have been just as grateful if people couldn't have brought anything but their love and support. Venturing into parenthood for the first time is scary enough, so to know that you have the love, support, and prayers of people who truly care for you is worth its weight in gold...(But don't get me wrong, the gifts are appreciated as well.)